Top Stories and Commentary for Monday, June 23, 2008

The number of students graduating from Los Angeles public schools has declined for two straight years even as enrollment in the 12th grade has been rising sharply, new state data show. The graduation slump began when California started requiring students to pass an exit exam before they could receive a diploma. The data caught educators by surprise after they were quietly posted on the state Department of Education website. Separately, new research released this week indicated that only 48% of students in the Los Angeles Unified School District graduate on time.

The United States has a long and dishonorable history of dumping the least-qualified teachers into schools that serve poor and minority students. This shameful practice has persisted nationally, despite the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which required the states to place “highly qualified” teachers in every classroom. The picture has improved significantly, however, in New York City, where state law has abolished temporary licenses for uncertified teachers, raised standards in teacher preparation programs and spawned innovative strategies for recruiting better teachers. A new study by the nonpartisan National Bureau of Economic Research shows that the teacher qualification gap between poor and well-to-do schools in New York City narrowed considerably between 2000 and 2005.

1997 saw the height of the Math Wars in California. On the one side stood educrats, who advocated mushy math - or new-new math. They sought to de-emphasize math skills, such as multiplication and solving numeric equations, in favor of pushing students to write about math and how they might solve a problem. Their unofficial motto was: There is no right answer. (Even to 2 +2.) They were clever. They knew how to make it seem as if they were pushing for more rigor, as they dumbed down curricula. For example, they said they wanted to teach children algebra starting in kindergarten, which seemed rigorous, but they had expanded the definition of algebra to the point that it was meaningless.

Also Noted for Monday, June 23, 2008:

San Fernando Middle School is expecting 1,600 students this fall, but officials estimate that the north Valley campus could handle 2,300. Lake Primary Center in Echo Park is expecting 160 but has room for 260. And Lincoln High School in Lincoln Heights is anticipating about 2,700 students; it has space for about 3,000. What do Los Angeles Unified School District officials plan to do with the empty space? Add to it. The district plans to build campuses that will take hundreds of students from those schools, further reducing their enrollment. By the time the building program is completed in 2012, there will be tens of thousands of empty seats at dozens of once-crowded schools, a Times analysis shows.

Zelma Henderson, the last living plaintiff from the Brown v. Board of Education desegregation suit, died last month at the age of 88. Unlike other parents involved in the case, Henderson was satisfied with the quality of all-black schools. What mattered more to her was giving children of different races a chance to learn together and understand each other. If that had ever happened in Los Angeles, the city’s public schools might look much different than they do today. In many urban areas, the process of school integration was challenging and painful. It meant taking students out of their schools, placing them with those they had learned to fear or despise, and often busing them across town to do so.

Southern Orange County is suburbia defined, filled with rows of spacious homes, acres of manicured lawns, high-performing schools and every chain store imaginable. It’s also the unlikely breeding ground for a parental revolt that has bitterly divided the community — and claimed several victories, most notably the felony indictment of a former schools superintendent for creating "enemies lists." The next skirmish occurs Tuesday, when voters decide whether to recall two longtime board trustees in the beleaguered Capistrano Unified School District. If district critics — a collection of parents, politicians and gadflies — replace them with candidates of their own, they will win majority control of the 50,000-student district, capping a four-year struggle.

All middle schools in Ventura County should have a campus police officer, no more than 461 students per counselor and perimeter fencing with locking gates to improve student safety, according to a new report by the Ventura County Grand Jury. School safety was one of several issues the Grand Jury took up this year. Jurors chose to focus on middle schools since a high school review was completed several years ago. That 2002 investigation was prompted by a rash of incidents, including a police shooting of a teenager who held a student at gunpoint at Hueneme High School in Oxnard and shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado.

Phil Holmes, one of the great English teachers of his generation, is standing before a class of high school seniors, trampling all over their self-esteem. It is a Thursday in October, not long into the school year. Holmes gazes out at his class, his proper prep school face set off by white hair and rimless spectacles, and tells his students, all of them black kids from South Los Angeles, that the first grading period is ending "and most of you will be getting Fs." The students stare, dead silent. For perhaps the first time today, he has their full attention "This is not a good start," Holmes continues, his tone stern but even. "But on the other hand, it’s not unusual."

Editor’s Note: Mississippi is taking steps to improve its dismal graduation rates, which is crucial for the success of its families writes Leroy Johnson. Johnson is the executive director of Southern Echo, a statewide leadership education, training and development organization based in Jackson. He moderated a town hall meeting in Greenville in May, part of the national Equal Voice for America’s Families Campaign.

As a parent, I’ve experienced the frustration of trying to get my children prepared for college. My son had no certified science or math teachers in high school. We sent him to a math summer camp and got him tutoring, and now he’s doing fine in college. But why did I have to pay out of pocket for educational services I had already paid for with my taxes?

With the battle lines drawn, a state appeals court in Los Angeles today will once again consider a controversial case that could drastically affect the growing home-school movement in California. The 2nd District Court of Appeal will hear arguments in a legal fight over whether parents who home-school their children must have teaching credentials. The same appeals court earlier this year sent shock waves through the nation’s home-schooling movement, finding that parents who lack teaching credentials are violating California’s compulsory-education laws if they home-school their children. No other state has that requirement.

Note: This edition includes Weekly Recap below

Top Stories and Commentary for Friday, June 20, 2008

After the sounds of "Pomp and Circumstance" have faded, Californians will find out just how many high school seniors actually graduated this year. A significant number will be denied diplomas because they failed the California High School Exit Exam. As the only part of the state’s accountability system with direct consequences for students, the exit exam has been the focus of legal and political challenges from the beginning. This year’s results are unlikely to quiet the controversy.

Neither California nor its school kids will get ahead if state officials take three steps back for every step forward. Studies of vocational education, for instance, keep touting it for students so inclined. The latest, a forecast for the Sacramento region, studied 75 key industries that employ 80 percent of workers. In 2015, they will account for nearly 900,000 jobs, most low skill and low wage, which usually are entry-level jobs for young workers. Others occupations – health care, construction, technology – offering steady employment and livable wages may require some college, but not a degree.

Graduation might be too lofty a goal for some high school students. That’s the alarming conclusion of a new study that looks at funding for tutoring programs tied to the California High School Exit Examination. Those funds might be better spent elsewhere — like the primary grades, according to the report by the Public Policy Institute of California. "By law, current funding for tutoring those at risk of failing the CAHSEE is targeted at those in grade 12 and beyond," the report says. "But is this the best use of limited resources?"

Also Noted for Friday, June 20, 2008:

Although his first year and a half in office has been unimpressive, no one disputes LAUSD Superintendent David Brewer’s commitment and integrity. He seems sincerely dedicated to making the Los Angeles Unified School District a world-class educational institution, and doing what’s best for its 700,000 students. Which is why the best thing Brewer can do for the district now is resign. During his tenure, Brewer has proved utterly unable to tend to L.A. Unified’s most pressing need - reining in its behemoth and out-of-control bureaucracy.

Campuses stress that the event marks a transition to more education, not the end of the process. At a Santa Ana school, it’s ‘promotion’ and in Los Angeles it’s ‘culmination activities.’
By Tony Barboza/Los Angeles Times

Commencement at this Santa Ana school was a serious ordeal. Boys had to wear ties. Girls’ dresses required shoulder straps at least 2 inches wide. Families brought balloons and flowers and decorated their cars with white shoe polish. Five rehearsals ensured flawless filing in and out of the auditorium by students in red gowns. But if something did go awry, it was hardly the end of the world. After all, they were only leaving middle school. At schools like Spurgeon Intermediate in a hardscrabble Santa Ana neighborhood, graduation is a time of pomp and ceremony.

In a week of culminating glory for high school graduates and their parents, few have more bragging rights than the 300 or so seniors who walked the stage Thursday at Alain Leroy Locke Senior High School. The graduates of Locke are exceptional in the most literal sense. Of the 1,558 freshmen who started out almost four years ago, these were all who managed to reach Thursday’s ceremony. The numbers are so startling, they beg to be placed next to each other so we can grasp them: more than 1,500 freshmen, about 300 graduates. Some of the latter didn’t even receive their diplomas, as they haven’t yet passed the high school exit exam.

The student at a troubled campus resisted peer pressure to slack off and became valedictorian.
By Jason Song/Los Angeles Times

Perla Guzman didn’t want to go to Locke High School after her older brother was beaten up on the way to his fifth period algebra class. She was even more doubtful her freshman year when she discovered a girl passed out in a bathroom stall who had tried to get high by inhaling air freshener. "But then I thought, ‘If my brother can go through this, then I can go through it,’ " she said. "I can do what he did." In some ways, Guzman may have done even more. Her brother Orlando graduated from Locke two years ago and earned a scholarship to Cal State Long Beach. Guzman graduated Thursday as Locke’s valedictorian with a 4.38 grade point average. She plans to enroll at UCLA this fall.

WEEKLY RECAP - Monday June 16 through Thursday June 19, 2008

A San Francisco law firm that alleges Hiram Johnson High School violated state and federal standards for education equality is reviewing a response from the Sacramento City Unified School District denying the violations. Lawyers with Public Advocates say Hiram Johnson administrators violated federal law when they transferred about 25 English-language learners out of a specialized English class and into classes such as landscaping and French. The firm also complained that 21 Hiram Johnson teachers taught courses last year without proper credentials or certification. "As superintendent of the district, and as an educator, it is my responsibility to the board of trustees and the community we serve to insure that all students are appropriately placed to realize their educational potential," district Superintendent Maggie Mejia wrote in her response to the firm’s complaint.

Crafting more effective ways to improve California schools takes careful thought, not a rush to beat a fiscal deadline. The Legislature should appropriate money for poorly performing schools before the state loses the funds, and address reforms of school improvement programs separately. SB 606, by Sen. Don Perata, D-Alameda, ties $47 million in federal funding to a move to ease sanctions on low-achieving schools. The money would pay for outside intervention in 97 California school districts that persistently failed to meet education accountability goals. But $18 million of that money reverts to the federal government if the state does not spend it by September, which requires prompt legislative action to appropriate the funds.

Community colleges need immediate help to handle their hundreds of thousands of unprepared students, the state Legislative Analyst’s Office reported Monday. High schools should assess the college readiness of students interested in attending two-year schools, the report concluded, and legislators should reform laws to permit colleges to spend more money on counselors and tutors. The report follows increasing recognition that reading, writing and math deficiencies could cripple the state’s economy in the near future. Nearly 700,000 students took remedial math and English courses at California’s 109 community colleges in 2006-07, and thousands more needed remedial work but did not take those courses.

Three former secretaries of education and four former presidents of the state Board of Education have signed a statement urging the state board not to retreat from the commitment to Algebra I as the standard math curriculum for eighth grade. Their high-visibility letter should give the board pause from adopting as standard a new math test for eighth grade that de-emphasizes algebra. The state board takes up the issue at its board meeting today. “There has been speculation and conjecture that Algebra I is merely adopted as a laudable goal or hope for eighth grade students. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

A federal judge upheld Bush administration education rules Tuesday that classify more than 10,000 teaching interns in California, and tens of thousands more nationwide, as "highly qualified teachers" and allow them to remain in classrooms. The ruling rejects a lawsuit filed last year by a group of low-income families in Richmond, Hayward and Los Angeles who argued that the government’s regulations conflicted with federal law and saddled schools serving low- income and minority students with a large number of inexperienced, noncredentialed teachers. The families cited the No Child Left Behind law, the centerpiece of President Bush’s education program, which requires all teachers to hold "full state certification."

A new study argues that the nation’s focus on helping students who are furthest behind may have produced a Robin Hood effect, yielding steady academic gains for low-achieving students in recent years at the expense of top students. The study, to be released on Wednesday, compared trends in scores on federal tests for the bottom 10 percent of students nationwide with those for the top 10 percent and said those at the bottom moved up faster than those at the top. In tests of fourth-grade reading from 2000 to 2007, for instance, the scores of the lowest-achieving students increased by 16 points on a 280-point scale, compared with a gain of three points for top-achieving students, according to the study, by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a research organization in Washington.

To get the well-educated, highly skilled workers that the country needs, states must strengthen public school curriculums, especially in math and science. States also need to adopt high-quality tests that show how students are performing from year to year. Still there is a danger when schools focus too much attention on test preparation at the expense of high-quality classroom instruction. A disturbing new study from an influential research institute at the University of Chicago shows that that is happening far too often in Chicago schools — and likely in many others across the country.

There was lots of talk at the state Board of Education meeting on Monday over what to do about algebra assessments for eighth grade — but no action. A divided or confused or perplexed board punted the issue to the July meeting. This marks the second delay. What will happen next is anyone’s guess, because a complex issue that normally would be the stuff for psychometricians — enter the high grass if you dare — has become polarized. A seemingly clever effort by the state Dept. of Education to comply with No Child Left Behind has ended up pitting advocates for low-income kids, like Ed Trust West and EdVoice, against the ed establishment of the Department of Education and the state school administrators association.

Top Stories and Commentary for Thursday, June 19, 2008

To get the well-educated, highly skilled workers that the country needs, states must strengthen public school curriculums, especially in math and science. States also need to adopt high-quality tests that show how students are performing from year to year. Still there is a danger when schools focus too much attention on test preparation at the expense of high-quality classroom instruction. A disturbing new study from an influential research institute at the University of Chicago shows that that is happening far too often in Chicago schools — and likely in many others across the country.

There was lots of talk at the state Board of Education meeting on Monday over what to do about algebra assessments for eighth grade — but no action. A divided or confused or perplexed board punted the issue to the July meeting. This marks the second delay. What will happen next is anyone’s guess, because a complex issue that normally would be the stuff for psychometricians — enter the high grass if you dare — has become polarized. A seemingly clever effort by the state Dept. of Education to comply with No Child Left Behind has ended up pitting advocates for low-income kids, like Ed Trust West and EdVoice, against the ed establishment of the Department of Education and the state school administrators association.

A California legislative committee passed two bills Wednesday that would allow the state to revoke licenses from teachers who plead no contest to certain sex crimes or drug offenses or have had their licenses revoked in another state. The bills by Sen. Bob Margett, R-Arcadia (Los Angeles County), and Sen. Jack Scott, D-Altadena (Los Angeles County), would close loopholes in California’s teacher credentialing system that have allowed some teachers to stay in the classroom after they have been accused or even convicted of serious crimes. In unanimously approving both bills, the Assembly Education Committee rejected arguments from the California Teachers Association, which opposed the legislation.

Josue Juarez reached a milestone Tuesday in his young life. He graduated from preschool. Compared with many children his age, the 5-year-old from Redwood City has an academic edge going into kindergarten this fall. "I learned the numbers, the ABC and sounds of letters," said Josue, who spent two years in the San Mateo County Office of Education’s Preschool for All project. Many more Latino children like Josue and other student groups should participate in high-quality programs such as Preschool for All, according to a new study released today by the independent, nonprofit research organization RAND Corp.

Also Noted for Thursday, June 19, 2008:

Ray Cortines likes to downplay his role in the Los Angeles Unified School District. The man whose long educational experience includes running some of the country’s largest school districts was named L.A. Unified’s senior deputy superintendent in May. Immediately before that, serving as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s deputy mayor for education, he headed up Villaraigosa’s Partnership for Los Angeles Schools reform effort. And now, he says he’s the second in command to Superintendent David L. Brewer III.

Unfavorable results from a feasibility study conducted earlier this month coupled with the state of the economy prompted school board members on Tuesday to ditch plans for a parcel tax this year. The San Leandro Unified School District will now focus on placing a possible parcel tax before voters during a special election in either March or June 2009. "I am frustrated and disappointed," trustee Stephen Cassidy told fellow board members Tuesday night. "I very much wanted to see us go forward." San Leandro schools are expecting a $3.6 million loss in revenue next school year, as outlined under the governor’s proposed spending plan to mitigate the state deficit.

By Roger Phillips/Stockton Record

The San Joaquin County grand jury - in a scathing six-page report released Wednesday - accused Stockton Unified School District leaders of misuse of public funds, an effort to cover up the misuse and hiring consultants to do work that should have been done by district employees. The numerous findings of the report include charges that district officials spent restricted-use funds inappropriately, "made questionable purchases using district funds" and forced the grand jury to use its subpoena power to get some information.

In order to get the most bang for the buck, the Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD) Facilities Services Division is partnering with community organizations like the YMCA and the Boys and Girls Club of America to complete the schools that are part of its $12.6 billion budget. At the same time, the district has created training programs that will increase the capacity of small contractors and train new workers in the construction sectors. Paul Escala, program director of the Joint Use Development Program of the LAUSD, said that the new school building program has a secondary goal of bringing more resources to communities, and this is being done in part by recruiting non-profit organizations to help build and operate youth centers, health clinics and to cultivate athletic programs on these campuses for students.

San Francisco school officials said Wednesday a lawsuit against the district appears to be inevitable if the city’s high schools continue to give physical education credit for the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps next school year. The school board tried to eliminate PE credit for the military courses at a special meeting Tuesday, but failed in a 3-3 vote. Board member Jane Kim, who sponsored the resolution, was absent. JROTC supporters said the surprise meeting was a new attack on the 90-year-old program. The school board voted in 2006 to eliminate the JROTC program, which enrolls about 1,200 students in seven high schools.

Supporters of a proposed Oregon ballot initiative that would put a cap of two years on the amount of time that English-language learners can spend in “English-immersion programs” or receive instruction in their native languages have gathered enough signatures to get the measure placed on the November ballot, state election officials announced today. The proposed statutory amendment says that public school students who aren’t proficient in English “shall be immersed in English, not sidelined for an extended period of time, but mainstreamed with English-speaking students in the shortest time possible.”

As the founder of Teach for America, a nonprofit program that recruits elite college graduates to teach in low-income schools, Wendy Kopp has presided over many triumphs, and the group’s annual dinner last month was another. It raised $5.5 million in one night and brought so many corporate executives to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York that stretch limousines jammed Park Avenue for blocks. Richard Barth runs KIPP, a charter school network. Watching discreetly from the ballroom floor was Ms. Kopp’s husband, Richard Barth. In the early years of Teach for America, he was one of her closest aides.

Top Stories and Commentary for Wednesday, June 18, 2008

A federal judge upheld Bush administration education rules Tuesday that classify more than 10,000 teaching interns in California, and tens of thousands more nationwide, as "highly qualified teachers" and allow them to remain in classrooms. The ruling rejects a lawsuit filed last year by a group of low-income families in Richmond, Hayward and Los Angeles who argued that the government’s regulations conflicted with federal law and saddled schools serving low- income and minority students with a large number of inexperienced, noncredentialed teachers. The families cited the No Child Left Behind law, the centerpiece of President Bush’s education program, which requires all teachers to hold "full state certification."

A new study argues that the nation’s focus on helping students who are furthest behind may have produced a Robin Hood effect, yielding steady academic gains for low-achieving students in recent years at the expense of top students. The study, to be released on Wednesday, compared trends in scores on federal tests for the bottom 10 percent of students nationwide with those for the top 10 percent and said those at the bottom moved up faster than those at the top.In tests of fourth-grade reading from 2000 to 2007, for instance, the scores of the lowest-achieving students increased by 16 points on a 280-point scale, compared with a gain of three points for top-achieving students, according to the study, by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a research organization in Washington.

Comparing graduation rates from state to state, or even school to school, can be difficult because all kinds of methods are used to determine them. Federal officials have a solution that could make that process easier — and more accurate — within the next five years. U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings in April proposed new rules requiring states to assign students a unique ID number to track the individual from ninth grade through graduation, or until that student drops out. The proposal, which mirrors an agreement states made with the National Governors Association, would provide every district with a more scientific graduation rate.

When Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, it rewrote much of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, increasing the amount of testing required and demanding that states hold schools accountable for results on those tests. Although the changes were intended to hold school officials accountable for the educational experiences of disadvantaged children, Congress left intact a short clause in the main K-12 education law that, in practice, has failed to ensure that money from the federal Title I program only supplements state and local money, researchers and advocates said at a conference here last week.

Also Noted for Wednesday, June 18, 2008:

In 2000, California voters passed Proposition 39, which, among other things, guarantees charter schools the same access to public facilities as other public schools. For nearly eight years, L.A. Unified ignored that requirement until this spring, when - forced by a lawsuit - it grudgingly agreed to provide charters the space to which they are legally entitled. But less than a month after agreeing to terms with 22 charter schools about providing them space on LAUSD campuses, the district suddenly rescinded the offer.

By Doug Haberman and Paige Austin/Riverside Press-Enterprise

The California Department of Education on Tuesday said it plans to seek federal help in investigating allegations that an Indio nonprofit received a $34.5 million grant based upon a grant application rife with forgeries and false information. That money has since been returned, and as a result, some Inland low-income children will go without after-school programs. The state Education Department is drafting letters to both the California and U.S. attorneys general, seeking investigations into a grant application on behalf of the Indio Youth Task Force, said John Malloy, administrator of the Education Department’s after-school policy and evaluation office.

A teenager faces felony charges and could spend decades in prison over allegations that he repeatedly broke into an acclaimed Orange County high school, hacked into computers to change his grades and stole tests — all in hopes of improving his college admissions prospects, authorities said Tuesday. Omar Khan, 18, should be graduating with his Tesoro High School classmates today; instead, he is being held in jail in lieu of $50,000 bail. Another student, Tanvir Singh, also 18, faces lesser charges and is expected to turn himself in to authorities this afternoon.

By Dan Frosch/New York Times

The memories of long summers spent on Navajo land as a little boy have stayed with Nolan Eskeets, like the words his grandfather spoke from his deathbed. “Up, little one,” his grandfather said to him in Navajo, a language Nolan did not understand. Now a barrel-chested 18-year-old, with a rush of long brown hair, Nolan summons these memories — the days herding sheep through the valleys, the redolence of fresh fry bread, the unfamiliar language of his grandfather — whenever he picks up a pen. Nolan will use that pen and his baritone when he competes this summer in the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam Festival in Washington, D.C. He and a group of fellow students at the Santa Fe Indian School are part of a growing program that has won a slew of local and regional poetry slams and twice earned an invitation to the festival, which pits teams of the country’s top young spoken word poets against one another.

Students in the D.C. school voucher program, the first federal initiative to spend taxpayer dollars on private school tuition, generally did no better on reading and math tests after two years than public school peers, a U.S. Education Department report said yesterday. The findings mirror those in previous studies of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, passed by a Republican-led Congress in 2004 to place the District at the leading edge of the private school choice movement. It has awarded scholarships to 1,903 children from low-income families, granting up to $7,500 a year for tuition and other fees at participating schools.

Top Stories and Commentary for Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Community colleges need immediate help to handle their hundreds of thousands of unprepared students, the state Legislative Analyst’s Office reported Monday. High schools should assess the college readiness of students interested in attending two-year schools, the report concluded, and legislators should reform laws to permit colleges to spend more money on counselors and tutors. The report follows increasing recognition that reading, writing and math deficiencies could cripple the state’s economy in the near future. Nearly 700,000 students took remedial math and English courses at California’s 109 community colleges in 2006-07, and thousands more needed remedial work but did not take those courses.

Three former secretaries of education and four former presidents of the state Board of Education have signed a statement urging the state board not to retreat from the commitment to Algebra I as the standard math curriculum for eighth grade. Their high-visibility letter should give the board pause from adopting as standard a new math test for eighth grade that de-emphasizes algebra. The state board takes up the issue at its board meeting today. “There has been speculation and conjecture that Algebra I is merely adopted as a laudable goal or hope for eighth grade students. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Also Noted for Tuesday, June 17, 2008:

As a daughter of migrant workers, Cynthia Cortez Rodriguez was no stranger to a nomadic lifestyle. In her first two years of high school, Rodriguez’s family moved back and forth from Ventura County to Washington state, where her parents picked apples. By the end of her sophomore year, Rodriguez had attended four high schools. The constant moving affected Rodriguez’s grades, and she was behind by at least 75 credits by the time she started her junior year at Rio Mesa High School in the Oxnard Union High School District.

When the Los Angeles Unified School District’s new payroll system launched in January 2007, problems quickly became evident. Thousands of teachers and employees stopped getting their paychecks, and many of those who got paid weren’t paid the right amount. That was just the beginning of a year of payroll glitches that took more than $40 million to (mostly) resolve. But the story of L.A. Unified’s botched implementation of a $95 million computerized payroll system is only a small part of a much larger tale.

Results from a study of how receptive voters would be to a possible November parcel tax will be presented to trustees during tonight’s school board meeting. Public school funding — along with other California programs — is being threatened under the governor’s proposed plan to tackle the state deficit, which has prompted San Leandro Unified School District to consider local support. The district estimates it will lose $3.6 million in revenue next school year under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed spending plan.

Education czar says it’s time to ’stop, look and listen’
By Maureen Magee/San Diego Union Tribune

U.S. education chief Margaret Spellings made a whirlwind tour of San Diego yesterday to discuss how technology in schools can raise student achievement and better prepare students for the real world. Spellings hosted the last of four roundtable forums, held nationwide over the past 14 months, at wireless giant Qualcomm – where she engaged leaders in education, technology and investment on topics ranging from computers and cellular phones to electronic textbooks and teacher training. “Before I leave office I think we should stop, look and listen with regard to where we are in terms of technology in our schools,” Spellings said.

The Alternative Learning Community opened last fall as a middle school for students teetering between success and failure. It was built in a hurry. The man who spearheaded the project felt the school was so badly needed in Oakland that he couldn’t let another year go by without it.
"These are kids that, frankly, we have failed as a district," Fred Brill, the district administrator and driving force behind the school, said at the time. As with many education experiments, the ALC looked flawless on paper: an outdoor education school with small class sizes and mental health advisers.

Top Stories and Commentary for Monday, June 16, 2008

A San Francisco law firm that alleges Hiram Johnson High School violated state and federal standards for education equality is reviewing a response from the Sacramento City Unified School District denying the violations. Lawyers with Public Advocates say Hiram Johnson administrators violated federal law when they transferred about 25 English-language learners out of a specialized English class and into classes such as landscaping and French. The firm also complained that 21 Hiram Johnson teachers taught courses last year without proper credentials or certification. "As superintendent of the district, and as an educator, it is my responsibility to the board of trustees and the community we serve to insure that all students are appropriately placed to realize their educational potential," district Superintendent Maggie Mejia wrote in her response to the firm’s complaint.

What we call "public education" in California is an amorphous collection of countless specific programs, pots of money, governmental entities, political stakeholders, laws and regulations – not to mention, of course, about 6 million kids who are supposed to be educated to take their places in the adult world. The conflicts of interest and ideology are equally numerous, not the least of which is how deeply the state should intervene when schools fail to meet a prescribed standard of educational performance, usually as defined by academic tests. While the state has a long-established and, unfortunately, oft-used mechanism for intervention when local school systems find themselves in financial difficulty, academic intervention is a new concept, one given official sanction by the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Watch the State Board of Education closely on Monday to how it handles a dilemma over the math test for eighth graders. Its decision will determine whether the state remains true to its commitment that all eighth graders take Algebra I to put them on a path of readiness for college. What’s forcing the board’s hand is that the federal Department of Education under Secretary Margaret Spellings has finally noticed that the state is out of compliance with No Child Left Behind. The law requires that states adopt content-specific standards in math and test students’ knowledge of them. California does that for grades three through seven.

Eleven years ago, after much political and pedagogic angst, California adopted a historically rigorous set of academic standards for the state’s K-12 students, one of which – and one of the most contentious – was that eighth-graders should learn the rudiments of algebra. Adoption of the math standards by the state Board of Education was a victory for advocates of traditional academics and a setback for those, including Delaine Eastin, then the state superintendent of schools, who preferred what many called "new math" that emphasized fuzzy concepts over precise calculation.

It was over dinner in Bangalore that Bob Compton began to suspect something was deeply amiss in the way America educates its young. Compton, a successful venture capitalist, was meeting with some of the Indian software engineers he employed. He soon found himself engaged in "the most interesting conversations I’ve ever had." He had expected math and science nerds. But they also knew more about history, geography and literature than most Americans he knew. "I said to them, ‘How’d you get this way?’ " he recalled. "They said, ‘Well, at school.’ "

For the first time in more than 100 years, the national Parent Teachers Association will have a man as its chief executive officer. The appointment of Byron Garrett, 35, comes at a time when the country’s leading parent advocacy group is struggling to retain its members. The selection of Garrett, a black former school principal, also underscores the PTA’s efforts to get more men engaged in their kids’ studies and reach out to ethnic and urban communities. Garrett, who signed a five-year contract with the PTA, will be working in tandem with 47-year-old Chuck Saylors, the organization’s first male president-elect, who was picked last year.

Early in the morning of July 3, 1996, Gov. Pete Wilson and the leaders of the Legislature announced a deal to spend $771 million to reduce the size of kindergarten through third-grade classrooms across California. Hailed as the start of a renaissance for public education in the state, the plan would provide financial incentives for school districts to cut K-3 class size from an average of 30 to no more than 20. Education leaders praised the goal but questioned whether they would be able to find enough teachers and buildings to meet the new standard. A hiring scramble ensued, and a year later nearly one-fourth of the teachers in California had one year of experience or less.

Also Noted for Monday, June 16, 2008:

At least three Silicon Valley dads won’t unwrap a new tie or hang out with the family around the barbecue today. Instead, on this Father’s Day weekend, Maurice Ghysels, Bruce Barsi and Nelson Iwai - all 52-year-old Mountain View dads - hauled their Spandex-covered bottoms 137 miles to Sacramento on their bicycles. They left their homes at 6 a.m. Saturday and finished the trip in 13 hours - a half-day earlier than they planned. Today at 3 p.m., the trio hope to deliver a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger requesting more funding for California schools. They expect a few dozen friends and family members - including their two children apiece - to gather with them for support.

It seems as if no one at Dolores Street Elementary likes Principal Anna Barraza. In recent weeks, teachers and parents at the Los Angeles Unified School District campus in Carson have been staging protests, filing petitions and asking district officials to remove Barraza and give the school a new principal for the next academic year. United Teachers Los Angeles reports that about two-thirds of the teachers at Dolores are so unhappy they won’t return next year if Barraza’s still in charge. The complaints are many against the veteran LAUSD administrator.

Top Stories and Commentary for Thursday, June 12, 2008

If Johnny can’t read and Sally can’t add, it’s often because of the color of their skin and their ZIP code, educators and activists said Wednesday. The heads of the New York City and Washington, D.C., school systems joined with civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton and others to press for a shake-up of public schools from coast to coast to narrow the achievement gap between white students and black and Hispanic students. The group called the gap the nation’s most pressing civil rights issue. By the time they near high school graduation, black and Hispanic teenagers on average have math and reading skills no higher than that of white middle-school students four years younger.

By Sam Dillon/New York Times

Democrats are dividing into camps as they debate a new course for education policy after President Bush leaves office. On Wednesday, a group of a dozen prominent educators and lawmakers, led by Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein of New York and the Rev. Al Sharpton, said the United States’ public schools shortchanged poor black and Latino children in a way that was “shameful,” and urged Washington to squeeze teachers and administrators harder to raise achievement among minorities. On Tuesday, about 60 prominent educators and academics issued another manifesto, which criticized the federal No Child Left Behind law and argued that schools alone could not close a racial achievement gap rooted in economic inequality.

By Greg Toppo/USA Today

Decades-long ties between civil rights groups and teachers unions could be split by a new effort, led by the Rev. Al Sharpton and New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, to close the nagging achievement gap between white and minority students. Sharpton, a Baptist pastor and political gadfly, says that for years, civil rights leaders have been silent on education equity issues. But a new group of activists, school superintendents and academics will push education in the 2008 presidential election, he said. Unions have blocked what many reformers say are innovative ideas, such as alternative pay grades for teachers, expanded charter schools and moving excellent teachers into needy schools.

The Democratic leader of the state Senate is pushing legislation to weaken intervention plans for California’s worst-performing school districts, subverting a deal between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the superintendent of schools. The bill by Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata would restrict the power of the state Board of Education to sanction schools and districts that fail to meet the goals of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. It also jeopardizes some $47 million in federal money for struggling California schools. In March, the state Board of Education approved a compromise between the Republican governor and Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell, a Democrat, that imposed a sliding scale of sanctions against 97 failing school districts.

A committee created by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger two years ago to evaluate and make recommendations about the kindergarten to grade 12 education in the state is on the road talking to teachers, administrators, parents, and students about its recommendations outlined in the “Report Student’s First, Renewing Hope for California’s Future.” Los Angeles was the first in the series of comunity dialogues, and just shy of 50 people turned out on an election evening at Los Angeles Trade Technical College to listen, pose questions, and offer input. The committee has come up with a comprehensive set of recommendations that begin with the statement identifying the system of education in California as “the culprit behind the continued failure to produce students who can achieve.”

Passing rates on California’s High School Exit Exam are just over 90 percent. That means thousands of high school graduates still fail the test and don’t get their diplomas. Now, scholars say they’ve identified the early signposts of failure.

Margaret Spellings is not running for office — at least, not yet. But in the waning days of the Bush presidency, she is running one last campaign. On a cold and soggy morning in March, Ms. Spellings, the relentlessly cheery and sometimes sassy United States secretary of education, turned up here, at a little brick elementary school across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. She had been on the road for months, promoting President Bush’s beleaguered education initiative, No Child Left Behind, delivering one sales pitch after another.

This has turned out to be quite the year for anniversaries and commemorations. In addition to June 6 being the 40th anniversary of Bobby Kennedy’s death, it also marked the 30th anniversary since California voters passed Proposition 13. Known today as the "third rail" of California politics, Prop. 13 placed a cap on property tax rates in the state, reducing them by an average of 57 percent. In addition to lowering property taxes, the initiative also contained language requiring two-thirds majority in both legislative houses for future increases in all state tax rates or amounts of revenue collected, including income taxes.

Also Noted for Thursday, June 12, 2008:

This is still not over: vice superintendent
Por Andrea Carrión/Diario Hoy

Esta semana, funcionarios del Distrito Escolar Unificado de Los Ángeles (LAUSD) anunciaron reducciones de hasta 402.5 millones de dólares en su presupuesto anual. Dicha noticia se traduce en el despido de 507 trabajadores administrativos, ciertos ajustes en los beneficios de los empleados y eventuales incrementos en el número de alumnos por aula. Dichos recortes son el resultado del último presupuesto estatal propuesto por el gobernador Arnold Schwarzenegger, el que no toma en cuenta un aumento en el costo de vida y obvia ciertos programas, según críticos.
This week, LAUSD officials announced reductions of up to $402.5 million dollars in their annual budget. This translates into 507 layoffs of administrative workers, certain adjustments in benefits for employees and eventually, into increases in class sizes. These cuts are the results of the last proposed state budget that was submitted by Governor Schwarzenegger, which does not consider cost of living adjustments and eliminates certain programs, according to critics.

Karen Salazar was let go from Jordan High, criticized for being too ‘Afro-centric’
By Howard Blume/Los Angeles Times

Students and fellow educators are rallying behind a fired Jordan High School teacher they say was sacked for encouraging political activism among her students. About 60 students rallied Wednesday at the Watts campus, while a colleague of the fired teacher said he and 15 other instructors planned to resign or transfer to other schools to protest the dismissal of Karen Salazar, a second-year English teacher. The dust-up has gone digital as well. Salazar backers have posted videos on the website YouTube.

Less than three months into his tenure, Superintendent Terry Grier is shaking up the top ranks of San Diego Unified. Top-earning administrators and vice principals are interviewing to keep their own jobs. School district outsiders and insiders alike are being tapped to fill new slots. And Grier has introduced a novel method to screen the best principals and administrators for the jobs — an interview meant to measure values and problem-solving, aimed at picking the optimal principals and teachers for disadvantaged kids.

A ballot measure to extend the parcel tax charged to property owners in the Livermore school district has enough support to pass, according to a recent survey. Among the findings, 72 percent were in favor of continuing the $120 per parcel property owners currently pay plus an $18 increase. Such measures need two-thirds approval to pass. Superintendent Brenda Miller said the district will likely capitalize on the existing support and place the measure on the November ballot. "We were elated," Miller said of the results. But she said the result doesn’t mean winning in November is a sure thing. "We’re cautiously optimistic."

In a major legislative success for Gov. Bobby Jindal, the Louisiana Senate voted 25 to 12 on Wednesday for a bill that would let up to 1,500 low- to middle-income students in New Orleans attend private schools at taxpayer expense. Already approved by the House, the bill, a $10 million school voucher measure, needs one more routine vote in that body on the Senate language changes before it goes to Mr. Jindal, a Republican, for signing. Backers say the bill will help some New Orleans children escape a struggling school system that has for years been known for corruption, bad management and poor student performance.

Top Stories and Commentary for Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Frustrados por la falta de clases que preparen a los jóvenes a ingresar a la Universidad, cerca de 300 estudiantes, padres de familia y activistas comunitarios se plantaron ayer afuera del Distrito Escolar Unificado de Los Ángeles (LAUSD), para exigir a funcionarios que implementen los Cursos A-G, que prometieron para los estudiantes de preparatoria hace tres años.
>Frustrated by the lack of college preparatory courses, nearly 300 students, parents and community activists protested yesterday outside the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) headquarters to demand A-G courses be available in all high schools as was promised three years ago.

Mientras cientos de estudiantes, maestros y padres protestaban por la falta de clases requeridas para la universidad en las escuelas del LAUSD, la Junta de Educación aprobaba una serie de recortes y despidos. Luego de tres horas de discusión, la Junta Directiva del Distrito Escolar Unificado de Los Ángeles (LAUSD) aprobó ayer las recomendaciones presentadas por el superintendente, David Brewer, para establecer el presupuesto provisional del próximo curso que contempla recortes calificados por él mismo de "horribles y dolorosos".
At the same time that hundreds of students, teachers, and parents protested over not having enough college prep classes in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) schools, the School Board was approving a set of cuts and layoffs. After three hours of discussion, the LAUSD School Board approved the recommendations presented by Superintendent David Brewer, establishing the interim budget for next school year, which contemplates cuts that he qualifies as terrible and painful.

As early as fourth grade, students who will be at risk of failing the high school exit exam — a state requirement to earn a diploma — can be identified based on grades, classroom behavior and test scores, according to a new study released Tuesday. The findings, based on an extensive study of student achievement in San Diego schools, call into question the effectiveness of aiming significant efforts and tens of millions of dollars at struggling high school seniors and older students to help them pass the exam.

After an exhaustive study of California’s troubled public school system was unveiled last year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state legislators declared that 2008 would be the "year of education" in which deficiencies would be frontally addressed. Never mind. The governor and lawmakers are wrangling, as usual, over school finances because the state faces, as usual, a budget deficit. And that, as usual, masks what should be the real debate over how well 6 million kids are being schooled. The fundamental goal of public education, one assumes, is to educate kids well enough to earn high school diplomas that signify readiness to enter the work force, secure additional vocational training and/or pursue a college-level education.

Students at risk of failing California’s high school exit exam can be identified as early as the fourth grade, which has broad implications for when educators should offer remedial help, according to a report by the Public Policy Institute of California. At the moment, the state invests in tutoring students in the last year of high school and beyond who fail the California High School Exit Exam, which became a graduation requirement in 2006. Authors of the report released Tuesday say the money might be better spent assisting students in elementary and middle school.

K-12 schools won’t be able to produce dramatic changes in student achievement without the help of programs giving low-achieving children access to health care, preschool, and a variety of other services, a group of prominent education researchers and policymakers says in a statement released today. “Despite the impressive academic gains registered by some schools serving disadvantaged students, there is no evidence that school improvement strategies by themselves can close these gaps in a substantial, consistent, and sustainable manner,” the informal group says in a manifesto titled "A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education."

Also Noted for Wednesday, June 11, 2008:

The Los Angeles Board of Education voted Tuesday to slash about $400 million from the state’s largest school system by cutting 507 administrative staff and clerical workers and requiring that all employees take a four-day unpaid leave. The board’s action avoids the heavy teacher layoffs and class-size increases that are facing smaller school districts throughout the state. Based on the current state budget, the Los Angeles Unified School District would have to make more than $700 million in cuts over the next three years, barring restored state funding, and could be forced to pack more students in classrooms after next year, board members said.

A steel tower wrapped in a spiraling ribbon is one of the most striking features of a new arts high school set to open next year. Its $230 million price tag is another. The Los Angeles High School for the Visual and Performing Arts, with space for some 1,600 students, most from surrounding low-income neighborhoods, is the architectural crown jewel of the district’s ambitious $20 billion building campaign. Its spacious studios and 995-seat theater encased in austere concrete are enough to make anybody wish they were a young clarinetist in the district.

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris issued citations Tuesday against six parents whose young children missed at least 50 days of school this year, the first time the city has prosecuted adults for student truancy. Harris cited the parents of four children, ages 6 to 13, on charges that they kept the children home despite repeated efforts by the school district and law enforcement to address the problem. "The charges are that they have violated California’s Education Code and allowed their children to go without an education," Harris said at a news conference with the city’s school chief, Carlos Garcia.

First grader Olivia Young stood in front of her classmates at San Francisco’s Starr King Elementary as she read her story out loud, the words written in Chinese characters above a hand-drawn picture of a little girl. The story, told completely in Mandarin, was about two friends, Olivia and Jade, who go to the forest and see a snake. Then the two girls become ghosts. The other Room 5 students listened closely and giggled at the strange tale before clapping at the end. Later, 7-year-old Olivia translated the tale. "Sen lin means forest," she said authoritatively.

Wading into what has become a politically sensitive issue across the country, a Los Angeles school board member will join with the City Attorney’s Office today to explore whether students should be required to wear uniforms. "I look at this as the opening dialogue to see what works and what doesn’t," Tamar Galatzan said of her hearing today with City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo. "There has been a lot of debate over this, and we want to see if we can come up with a district policy. Most importantly, we want to look at schools where it has had problems and look at why it didn’t work."

Top Stories and Commentary for Tuesday, June 10, 2008

It’s the $64,000 question of public education: Are charter schools better than their traditional public school counterparts? A report to be released today from the California Charter Schools Assn. takes a crack at it, comparing charter schools in Los Angeles with their traditional peers. Its conclusion is that charters generally perform better academically than nearby regular public schools, and that charters improve as they age. As is often the case with education statistics, it’s not quite that simple. A majority of the regular schools surveyed actually did better in one batch of test scores than the nearest comparable charter school and improved more from 2006 to 2007.

Sooner or later, every battle over the state budget boils down to how much money to spend on schools, and this year is no exception. It’s inevitable because schools consume half of the $100 billion-plus general fund and have a constitutional financing floor, because money debates morph into debates over school performance and because the school lobby, led by the California Teachers Association, is the Capitol’s most powerful force. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has become well acquainted – painfully so – with those factors as he has struggled, and largely failed, to end chronic budget deficits.

By Justin Pope/Washington Post

With their high visibility on elite college campuses, Asian-Americans have picked up a nickname that makes many uncomfortable: the "model minority." But a new report argues that Asian-Americans’ reputation for academic success has obscured important variations within the group _ and created a false sense that all their education needs are being met. As a group, Asian-Americans have earned above-average incomes and achieved high average levels of education, said Rep. David Wu, D.-Ore., at a news conference Monday to release the report by a national commission, two New York University research institutes and the College Board, which owns the SAT exam.

Education groups said Monday that California school districts, facing bleak and uncertain budget prospects, may not know until the very last minute how many teachers, counselors and other employees they will be able to hire for the coming school year. In any event, it will be fewer than they had before. In March, districts statewide sent layoff notices to about 14,000 teachers. Typically, many of those notices are rescinded after the governor submits his revised budget proposal in May.

If I put bumper stickers on my car, I might try this one: "Don’t blame me. I was only 17."I did not vote for Proposition 13 when it was on the ballot 30 years ago Friday. I was completing my senior year in high school in the San Diego suburbs, preparing to graduate in a few days. So I don’t deserve even a lone voter’s sliver of the credit or blame for the historic ballot measure that cut property taxes, capped them at 1 percent of the value of a home and then limited increases to 2 percent a year until a property changed hands. But sometimes I feel as if the state’s vote for Proposition 13 was the defining moment of my career in journalism and my life as an observer of California politics and policy.

The presumed November matchup produced by the long presidential-primary season that ended last week offers contrasting approaches to K-12 policy, along with some common ground on the basics of the No Child Left Behind Act. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, who last week secured enough delegates to claim the Democratic nomination, both express support for the NCLB law’s goals and its use of testing to measure schools’ success. But Sen. McCain would promote market forces as a way to spur school improvement, and would likely seek to freeze education spending as part of a review of the effectiveness of federal programs.

Also Noted for Tuesday, June 10, 2008:

El gobernador Arnold Schwarzenegger premió a 29 escuelas "charter" (independiente) con 463 millones de dólares, que se invertirán en construcción y modernización, como una manera de impulsar la economía del estado al apostar por la educación y la creación de nuevas fuentes de trabajo. Los Ángeles, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Bárbara, Alameda, Buttle, Contra Costa, Nevada, Sacramento y Sonoma son los 11 condados de California con escuelas "charter" favorecidas por este presupuesto.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger rewarded 29 charter schools with $463 million, which will be invested in construction and modernization, as a way to boost the state’s economy through education and job creation. Los Angeles, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Alameda, Buttle, Contra Costa, Nevada, Sacramento and Sonoma are the 11 California counties with charters that were rewarded this budget year.

The teachers’ union in Toledo, Ohio, has spearheaded a controversial policy to purge the school district of incompetent teachers. It’s called "peer review" and no school system in the country has been doing it longer than Toledo.Teachers’ unions are often blamed for protecting educators who are burned out or should never have been allowed to teach in the first place.

The closure of Sam Houston High School boiled down to math. Officials with the Houston Independent School District say they tried to solve the problem — spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix it — but for five straight years, Sam Houston could not get a small group of black students to pass the state-mandated math exam. Now, after state Education Commissioner Robert Scott forced the predominantly Hispanic school to close Thursday, some are criticizing Texas’ accountability system as too harsh — mandating drastic action based on a few students. Others say the blame lies with HISD for letting the poor performance continue.

Top Stories and Commentary for Monday, June 9, 2008

Tens of thousands of teachers formed picket lines outside nearly 900 schools here Friday morning to protest cuts to education financing proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to help close California’s projected $17 billion budget gap. If passed, the cuts would reduce financing for Los Angeles schools by $340 million next year, said A. J. Duffy, president of United Teachers of Los Angeles, the local teachers union. Mr. Duffy said the union, which represents 48,000 teachers, had announced plans for the hourlong protest more a month ago, allowing principals and teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest K-12 public school system, to work together to plan supervision of almost 700,000 students between 7:30 and 8:30 a.m.

New Hampshire’s commissioner of education is against grouping students by ability as early as middle school, saying that there is a stigma that comes with being placed in a low-level course at such an early age. "If they’re stigmatized early, then they’re stigmatized later," said Lyonel Tracy, who has been education chief since 2005. "It really is a question of empowering students to work to their highest ability. That cannot happen if we’re placing labels on them and continuing to place labels on them throughout the years."

Teachers meeting the “highly qualified” standard their states set were teaching core subjects in 94 percent of the nation’s classrooms in the 2006-07 school year, but poorer schools were still less likely than their wealthier counterparts to employ them. That year, 96 percent of core-subject classes in low-poverty schools were taught by highly qualified teachers, compared with 91 percent in high-poverty schools, according to the U.S. Department of Education, which recently released the data (requires Microsoft Excel) that states are required to submit to the federal agency. In some states, the gap was glaring. In Maryland, 95 percent of elementary classes in low-poverty schools were staffed with highly qualified teachers, compared with only 66 percent in poorer schools.

Long regarded as a monolith with predictable views on controversial issues affecting their profession, the nation’s 3.2 million teachers are increasingly split along generational lines. For reformers intent on improving the country’s 90,000 public schools, the division presents the possibility of change on an unprecedented scale. "Waiting to be Won Over," a survey of 1,010 public school teachers in K-12 released in May by Education Sector, a nonpartisan think tank, concluded that the "loyalty of teachers is up for grabs." It identified several key areas where the generational differences in attitudes among teachers offer the greatest potential for transforming the system.

By Maria Glod/Washington Post

Public school enrollment across the country will hit a record high this year with just under 50 million students, and the student population is becoming more diverse in large part because of growth in the Latino population, according to a new federal report. Nationwide, about 20 percent of students were Hispanic in 2006, the latest year for which figures were available for ethnic groups, up from 11 percent in the late 1980s. That trend is reflected in many Washington area schools. In Fairfax County, about 17 percent of students are Hispanic, jumping from about 4 percent two decades ago.

In the dry, wonkish world of public finance, Proposition 13 hit like jagged lightning 30 years ago. It was plain, simple and politically unstoppable. In 1978, Sacramento was sitting on a huge surplus and dithered over what to do. We’ll do it for you, Prop. 13 said, by cutting property taxes by more than half and rewriting the rules. It was a radical revolution that’s lasted largely untouched to this day. Local property taxes were rolled back to 1975 levels and real estate was taxed at one percent of value with only a two percent increased allowed per year.

Editorial/Contra Costa Times

Thirty years ago last Friday, California voters launched a historic tax revolution with the passage of Proposition 13. Property taxes were rolled back to 1975 levels and allowed to rise only 2 percent a year unless the property was sold, then the new price became the assessed valuation. Although business properties were not originally considered when Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann first proposed the tax limits, all property is covered by Proposition 13. Today, as in other times when state and local revenues have been tight, there is talk of "reforming" Proposition 13, meaning increasing the tax.

Joel Fox, the amiable former president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, used to complain vociferously about people who he thought blamed too many of California’s problems on Proposition 13, the landmark property tax limitation measure that voters passed on June 6, 1978. Fox, no fuming curmudgeon like Jarvis, who was the prime author of Proposition 13, was partially right. Proposition 13 did not cause every public service calamity of the last 30 years, much less the Northridge earthquake or the San Diego County wildfires. But in the years since Proposition 13’s passage, it has compounded California’s governmental and fiscal mess something awful.

Nine buses lumber up to Will Rogers Middle School each morning, carrying sleepy-eyed children who have spent as much as an hour on the road. They are the children of immigrant families from Argentina, South Korea, Mexico and Ukraine – enrolled at the Fair Oaks school for an opportunity to quickly learn the language of their new country. Will Rogers is one of the San Juan Unified School District’s language centers, offering specialized lessons to any seventh- or eighth-grader who isn’t fluent in English.

Also Noted for Monday, June 9, 2008:

Facing massive proposed state budget cuts, Los Angeles Unified schools chief David Brewer III is weighing a mandatory, unpaid furlough program for all district workers - including teachers. Brewer told the Daily News last week that he is continuing to lobby the state to restore $353 million for LAUSD, but he said that if legislators don’t relent he’s also looking at possible layoffs of more than 400 nonschool staff. Although he said he will not seek any layoffs of teachers, Brewer said other reductions could include deferring workers’ comp payments and cutting back on book purchases.

The financial fate of the West Contra Costa school district is in voters’ hands. The West Contra Costa school board this week unanimously approved putting a parcel tax on the November ballot to help the district generate about $10 million annually to pay for counselors, librarians, athletics and more. "We don’t have any extra money," Board member Madeline Kronenberg said Wednesday. "We need to have this funding. Without it, we fall behind."Board members, originally mulling over a renewal with an eight-year duration, ultimately decided to play it safe, opting for five years instead.